31. March 2010 by admin.

The clinic is over and everyone has left.  As much as I love the farm being busy I also love it when it is quiet.  Mags and I took Monty (her black lab), Léo and Cookie out for a lovely walk across the fields in between the rain showers.  They had a fantastic time romping together as up until recently we would keep either Monty or Léo on the lead in case they disappeared together.  Monty’s recall is now more reliable and now Léo is maturing he is less distracted by the behaviour of other dogs and pays little attention to Monty when he is busy searching for pheasants in the hedgerows.   I am getting everything ready for my trip to South Africa as I leave on the 14th for two weeks.  It is busy in South Africa but I could only promise two weeks when plans were finalised in January as I have too many work commitments here.  Tina will be going out to teach the third week so we won’t see each other for over three weeks.  That will be a bit strange.  Even though Tina only works for four days at Tilley Farm (aside from the times that she assists on the clinics) she is here with her own horses every day and also sees her private clients here so it all seems rather quiet when she and her dog Sally are absent from the farm for any length of time. 

Have snugged the bunnies in bed early, brought the donkeys in early too as the weather is GRIM and will head home now to walk my other dogs and feed the other donkeys and pony.

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31. March 2010 by admin.

Tropical Inc came to visit us again today as part of our second Companion Animal Practitioner Training Clinic.  The lovely Steve brought some baby chicks, along with meerkats, two skunks, bearded dragons, a pygmy hedgehog, snakes, tarantulas, a hawk, a snapping turtle, a macaw, and the gennet. I love the gennet.  The chicks all fell asleep whilst people were doing TTouches on them. Seemed very appropriate to have them here as Easter is approaching.  Léo decided to escape from the garden in the afternoon and had a lovely time greeting people and dogs at the end of the clinic.  He behaved beautifully and came back the moment I called him so the months of hard work using TTouches and the clicker have definitely paid off.  Some dogs are somewhat challenging during the adolescent period but if you keep calm, stay focused and are consistent in your handling and training they usually mature into calm and well mannered adults. 

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31. March 2010 by admin.

We are all missing Fish.  His companion, Flash, is adapting better than we had hoped and we will pair him up with another horse soon once the weather has improved a little. He needs to be in at night as he is old as well and its soooo cold and wet here.  Have started clipping out the fluffy bunny though.  She has amazing hair but it is so fine the winter weather does cause it to matt.  We clip and trim her regularly and now it is a little warmer I have started to remove the dead hair with the help of Jon who is now Chief Bunny Clipper as well as Indoor School Builder.  Kick boards are almost done in the arena. I think Jon and Jason have used over 7,000 nails and 2 km of wood so far. 

Tony is in his final week of Six Degrees of Separation.   We will have Sunday together and that will be it for a while.  He films Merlin in Wales for two days before heading out to France on Wednesday.  My sister and our nephews are going to go with him.  I won’t be going as will be filming the auditions for Toto for Over the Rainbow.  As much as I would love to go to France with my family I actually think I will be having the most fun out of us all.  Can’t wait.

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31. March 2010 by admin.

It was my birthday yesterday and Emily and I went to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Hilarious and the perfect Birthday show.  I now feel the need to redecorate our house with pink furnishings and glitter balls but not convinced it would fit with a Regency property.  

We all stayed in London over night and went to see the matinee of Jerusalem.  It has to be the best play I have ever seen.  Totally outstanding. Thought provoking, moving, funny and superbly acted.  Tickets are hard to come by but if you can get one - go.  You won’t be disappointed.  Truly superb.

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24. March 2010 by admin.

The bright, brilliant, golden light that was Fish has gone!

It is a sad day here at Tilley Farm. As the Olivier Awards were about to begin on Sunday night I received a text from Jon who lives at the farm to say that Mags’ (my office administrator) horse had colic. He had never had colic so I knew it was bad. I phoned for an update the minute the awards ceremony was over and was so sad to hear that he had been put to sleep at around 9.30pm. Mags had owned Fish since he was weaned and he graced her life for 28 years. He had been a wonderful eventer and, of course, a brilliant friend. He was such a gentleman and so patient and sweet with newcomers to the work that they couldn’t ever have imagined how powerful and on his toes he could be when out hacking through the fields with Mags or being led out to pasture on a sharp windy day.

I got home at around 1.30am and spent the rest of the night at the farm with Mags as she couldn’t go home knowing that her beloved horse was lying on the grass at the back of the stables. We lit tea lights and sat with him as dawn broke over Tilley Farm. Although the yard is still busy there is a stillness to the place; an audible calm that always follows death. Our horses have a quiet acceptance that the bright, brilliant, golden light that was Fish has gone. Fish, we shall miss you. With love from us all.

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24. March 2010 by admin.

An instant transformation!

I am back at the farm after a great visit to London. Oscar the West Highland terrier behaved impeccably on This Morning. In fact he was a total star. The horse clinic is buzzing and the horses are thoroughly enjoying themselves. Two of the equine visitors were braced in the neck at the start of the week, due in part to conformation and also habitual postural habits. Releasing the neck and shoulders is so important for both behaviour and performance and simple exercises such as rocking the neck gently, opening up the shoulder blades and running the hand up the vertebrae from the shoulder to the poll can have an almost instant effect. Both horses are changing beyond measure and their owners are thrilled.

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24. March 2010 by admin.

There just aren’t enough hours in the day!

It has been manic here at Tilley Farm and we are only half way through March. Tina has been off visiting our horse clients and is working with all manner of problems including a very spooky competition horse who is responding extremely well to the in hand exercises. The companion animal clinic is in full swing and I have been at Crufts for three days supporting Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in the fun competition Temptation Alley. Cookie Dough Dynamo is the proud owner of a red rosette and a large silver cup as our team won the event.

The roof of the indoor school is on and looking very smart indeed. The block work is almost finished and the stone base is in. I now need to win the lottery in order to buy the surface! I have another hectic week ahead as I will be live on This Morning with Oscar the little West Highland terrier, then teaching on the International Training Programme for Dogs Trust, also celebrating my daughter Daisy’s 19th birthday in London so that Tony can also be a part of the celebrations, plus working on Tony’s script for the Olivier Awards. He has been asked to host the entire ceremony. The equine training starts on Wednesday so horses are already beginning to arrive. Quite simply, there are not enough hours in the day for me to pack in everything that I want to do.

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24. March 2010 by admin.

A job with Andrew Lloyd Webber!

I am tired but completely over excited. I have been working with a West Highland terrier named Oscar who hasn’t been groomed and clipped for over a year as he has become defensive and snappy when the scissors appear. I have only seen him twice and the progress is remarkable. When I first met him I could barely touch him and the minute his owner picked up the scissors he would start baring his teeth. In the first session I showed his owner how to start stroking him with the wand, then a soft artist’s water colour brush and progressing to stroking him with the scissors. I was able to do tiny TTouches all around the matted hair in the second session and we were also able to start snipping out the matted bits. We all met up at the groomer’s today to meet Penny who will clip him at the studios when he appears live on the show and he was incredible. The slowly, slowly approach has definitely paid off even though I only started working with him a couple of weeks ago. He didn’t bat an eyelid when Penny started trimming his tail and running the clippers over his body. Hurrah!!

I also received a phone call from my agent just before the grooming session saying that I had been offered the job I went up for on December 16th. I am stupidly over excited. I am joining Jody Prenger (Nancy in ‘Oliver!’) and animal trainer Gerry Cotts in the search for Toto for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new TV programme Over the Rainbow, which is also searching for an actress to play Dorothy in a new stage production of The Wizard of Oz. I smiled for the full two hours it took to drive home from the groomer’s and my face now aches.

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24. March 2010 by admin.

Kilkenny update

I have had a lovely weekend in the company of Sharon Newsome and her daughter. Sharon runs the Irish Horse Welfare Trust and it was great to get updates on the Kilkenny horses that I worked with in December. All are doing well and the majority of them have found new homes which is brilliant news. I wish I had more time to return there but the diary is packed with all manner of events so I’m not sure that I will make it back to Ireland until early summer. It was also Tony’s birthday weekend which we celebrated today as he was doing two shows yesterday.

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